That’s strange, because I clearly remember being kicked out of a youth hostel in Amsterdam back in November 1961 and having the police called on me when I was still in my teens. My offense? Practicing silence. I had been reading a book on Zen Buddhism and in a fit of youthful idealism I had decided to stop speaking for several days, under the misguided belief that it would somehow enrich my mind.
Anyway, never before or since have I encountered people in positions of authority in a Western nation who struck me as so petty and tyrannical.
